Writing `s On Wall, And Seats, At Cta

Cuts Hamper Graffiti Clean-up

In the last four months, the Chicago Transit Authority has been overwhelmed by a problem that has become an unwelcome trademark of New York City--graffiti.

After years of relative success in fighting the problem, the agency has experienced an outbreak of spray-paint vandalism that has marred scores of buses and rapid-transit trains.

``It`s a new phenomenon,`` a CTA maintenance man said. ``They are doing the exteriors, the seats, the ceilings--everything. We are losing the battle.``

George Millonas, CTA maintenance chief, said: ``Every week or so I get calls from the guys in the field saying it is getting worse. It is not fair for a person getting on a vehicle to have to look at this.``

The CTA has prided itself on getting rid of graffiti as fast as it is applied, Millonas said. ``Despite what the public thinks, we do care how these vehicles look,`` he said.

But history and the transit authority`s good intentions notwithstanding, officials say that:

-- Vandals have invaded rail yards and bus parking lots around CTA garages in recent months where, in some cases, there are no fences or watchmen.

-- Former Mayor Jane Byrne`s controversial dismantling of the CTA`s police force has left the transit authority with no internal security unit to combat the problem.

-- Budget cuts and layoffs in the last five years have sliced the number of bus and rapid-transit ``servicers`` responsible for removing graffiti by 30 percent.

The problem is so widespread that CTA officials say they have all but given up on removing the unsightly scrawlings from the bus fleet, while barely keeping pace on rail cars.

The CTA does not break down the cost of combating graffiti, but last year vandalism of all types cost the authority $1.3 million.

The first major incident in the recent graffiti surge occurred on a weekend about four months ago when vandals got into the Rosemont rail yard on the CTA`s O`Hare rapid-transit line. Interiors and exteriors of 36 cars were defaced. A similar incident took place a month ago in the Ravenswood line`s Kimball Avenue yard.

The CTA has hired private security agencies on a short-term basis at a few rail yards, but guards haven`t caught any vandals.

Buses from the CTA`s Forest Glen garage, 5419 W. Armstrong Ave., which had a good record of rider respect for vehicles, have been especially hard hit.

``All of the buses going out of Forest Glen now are unbelievable,``

Millonas said.

Last Monday morning, CTA workers discovered random scrawlings on 24 buses parked in the lot of the North Avenue garage at North and Cicero Avenues. The lot is not fenced.

The 24 buses, all delivered to the CTA within the last two years, cost the transit authority about $130,000 each.

Millonas said the graffiti onslaught has been evident throughout the city and that it has gone beyond rolling stock. Some North Side rapid-transit stations also have been hit.

Though gang insignias reportedly have been emblazoned on some vehicles, the recent outbreak has mainly been the work of self-styled ``artists,``

Millonas said. Some rapid-transit cars, for example, have received the stylized scrawlings of a group calling itself the ``Artistic Bombing Crew.``

``A taste of New York`` is one of the slogans painted by ABC, the acronym the group uses on the cars it paints.

But no single group or person appears to be responsible for the systemwide outbreak of graffiti, Millonas said.

Mellonese Dorris, a veteran CTA bus driver, said that high school students sometimes pass felt-tip pens to one another, taking turns defacing bus interiors.

``It will be just one out of the whole group saying, `Let`s do this,`

`` Dorris said.

On a run on Grand Avenue last Tuesday night, a young man on her bus

``wrote on every seat, from the front to the back,`` she said. Dorris, who was interviewed as she drove another defaced vehicle on Chicago Avenue, said the man left the bus before she knew what had happened.

CTA officials say the most effective way of curtailing graffiti is to remove it immediately. But the authority`s war against vandals has been hampered severely by the decline in the number of servicers.

In 1980, the authority had 115 full-time rail servicers and 388 bus servicers, 322 of them full time and 66 part time.

There now are budgeted slots for only 87 servicers on the rail system and 293 on the bus system--241 full time and 52 part time.

But those numbers don`t tell the full story. In a showdown with its major union over a demand for renewed pension fund contributions, the CTA laid off 380 employees in February, including 2 full-time and 27 part-time bus servicers.

Previous policy called for removing graffiti when buses were brought in for major cleaning, roughly six times a year. But the reduction in the servicer work force has made it impossible to tackle the time-consuming job, Millonas said.